Events

McSweeny's gives you the person "in charge of the deck chairs on the Titanic, and they absolutely did need rearranging:" I am aware that the phrase “like rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic” has become shorthand for “a task rendered useless in the face of overwhelming circumstances.” Well, here’s another phrase for you: “how you do anything is how you do everything.” And if I was willing to die leaving a bunch of chairs sloppily bunched together with no thought to view or most pleasant sea...

It could be worse. It might yet be: Covid-19 cases have started to climb once again in the US, passing 8 million just three weeks after passing 7 million. In Illinois, we hit a second consecutive record, with 4,554 new cases today. (There were a record 4,015 yesterday.) TNR's Alex Shepherd says NBC did the Biden campaign a huge favor by booking the president, forcing a direct comparison between the two candidates in real time. The Atlantic's Adrienne LaFrance compares the absurd conspiracy theory QAnon...

First run

Variety reported this morning that Joe Biden had higher ratings than the president last night: Biden drew 12.7 million total viewers on the Disney-owned network, while Trump drew 10.4 million in the same 9-10 p.m. time slot on NBC. Across the entire runtime, the Biden town hall averaged 12.3 million viewers. In terms of the fast national 18-49 demographic, Biden is comfortably on top with a 2.6 rating to Trump’s 1.7. (I wonder if anyone has told him yet? Oh, to be a fly on Pence's head during that...

I dropped off my completed ballot this afternoon, so if Joe Biden turns out to be the devil made flesh, I can't change my vote. Tonight, the president and Joe Biden will have competing, concurrent town halls instead of debating each other, mainly because the president is an infant. The Daily Parker will not live-blog either one. Instead, I'll whip up a stir-fry and read something. In other news: Chris Christie continues the tradition of Republican politicians not understanding something until it happens...

I took these two photos about 35 years apart. The top one is Winter 1985: Here's the same location on a walk I took over this past weekend: Looks like they've re-lined the banks of the creek in the interim.

The National Aeronautical and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) reported today that September set a new record: Unprecedented heat around the world vaulted September 2020 to the hottest September since 1880, according to scientists at NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information. The month's warmth also contributed to 2020’s trend as a remarkably hot year, with the year-to-date global temperatures running second highest in the 141-year climate record. The average global temperature in September...

From Andrew Marantz at The New Yorker: In retrospect, it seems that the company’s strategy has never been to manage the problem of dangerous content, but rather to manage the public’s perception of the problem. In [former UK Liberal Democratic Party leader Nick] Clegg’s recent blog post, he wrote that Facebook takes a “zero tolerance approach” to hate speech, but that, “with so much content posted every day, rooting out the hate is like looking for a needle in a haystack.” This metaphor casts Zuckerberg...